Random thought before I start: you know who else I think is an Aspie? Harriet the Spy. Obsessive. Smart. Eats the same thing for lunch everyday. Manages to alienate herself from the entire school. Yeah, definitely an Aspie. It's been a while since I've seen/read it, so I can't say for sure, but she's a good candidate, if you ask me.
Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about my day. I had to run a few errands with my mom, so we were driving together for over an hour. Now, in the car is just about the only place that I'm even moderately comfortable sharing anything about myself with my family. I never could explain why, but now I realize it's probably because I don't have to make eye contact. I don't have to look at her face while I try to formulate my thoughts into words. I never realized that about myself. But when I have something really difficult to talk to either of my parents about, nine times out of ten, I'll bring it up in the car.
That wasn't even what I was going to talk about, but it's a wonderful revelation! Anyway, I started telling her about this blog, which I've mentioned in passing before, but I never told her what I was blogging about. I explained to her about yesterday's post, and asked her if it was a good idea to let my dad read it. She echoed the thought I had, that what would bug my dad most about this, was that it was on the internet for anyone to see. So, I explained to her that it's completely anonymous: no one I have ever met knows I'm writing this, and anyone who is reading this, most likely has never met me. I explained how much it's been helping me to write, since it's the best way I know to understand myself, and to figure out my situation, my plans. I told her that having it be public has put a little more pressure on me to write regularly, whereas if I had just written in my diary, like a "normal" person, I wouldn't have done so as often. And most of all, I told her how reading other people's blogs and articles has helped me immensely to better understand myself, and what I'm going through, and most importantly, to accept myself, and learn to deal with the problems that I have. Finding out that I had autism has quite literally changed my life, and how I see myself. I've made so much improvement over the last week, that I feel like an entirely different person, and I can imagine it's only going to get better from here. If just one person found themself from reading my words, if just one person realized that they are not alone, then I'll be happy. If I can give this new light to someone else, then heck yeah, I'm gonna do this. I'll spill the deepest, darkest parts of myself for everyone to see, even though I'm terrified that someone I know will stumble across this. I mean, if someone read this, and learned exactly who I am, and exactly what I'm going through, and decided to walk away? I can't even... I can't imagine what that would feel like. I can't let that happen. On the other hand, if it does, and I find out that it doesn't destroy me, well, maybe I should have put my real name on this thing, anyway.
But when I got across to her all the good things about my blog, she told me to copy and paste the entry into an email, for her to read, that way she won't "stumble across" anything I didn't want her to know, and she could read the entry, and let me know how we should move forward with my dad. I'll wait for her to read it, and we'll see how it goes. I hope I don't have to change anything, that he'll just read it and understand that I'm not angry or ignoring his advice, or anything like that. We'll see!
Quick plug: my mom is amazing. I cannot believe how understanding she's been through all of this, and not just because she has tics to deal with, either. Normally, you can't get her to stop talking. But when I really need to talk, she'll just listen. I keep being surprised. I guess I shouldn't be. But I am so lucky to have her.
You don't have to tell everyone and their cousin that you have autism or Asperger's or Tourette's or whatever. But having at least one person, willing to listen to you, and not judge or even try to give you solutions all the time, is a big, big deal. Everybody needs someone to talk to. I just never had anyone before.
The other thing I want to talk about today is this article. As you may imagine, the idea of love has been on my mind for about... my whole life. Give or take. And as I've been getting older, and spending more time with people, I've begun to realize that relationships are hard. And they're even harder when both sides have differently wired brains, only they don't know it. I'm gonna be up front here: the longest "official" relationship I had lasted two weeks. That was where we said "We are boyfriend and girlfriend now. We will only date each other now." I had no idea what I was doing, and we ended up splitting apart very quickly. The other, more real relationship is a little harder to define. In true Aspergian fashion, I need things to be laid out, in plain, specific language, and so I have no idea how "serious" our relationship was, or if we were ever "officially" a couple. True, it was never made "facebook official," but we dated exclusively for several months, so perhaps we were an "item". I'll never know if I don't ask him, and I'm pretty sure that's taboo. I have no idea.
My point is, over the past couple months, I've been getting this image of me, twenty years down the road, living in my parent's basement, surrounded by a million cats. Which is ridiculous. My parents would never let me get that many cats. As I've begun to understand how my brain works, and how I can better explain to other people who I am, this picture has faded a little bit. But even the most understanding significant other may have trouble getting close to someone who is uncomfortable with physical contact on a good day. I have a lot of doubts, but a lot of hope, too. Reading about John Elder Robison's life, in Look Me In the Eye, has opened up the possibilities a little, because he mentions his relationships, particularly that of his second wife, and how much of a success that is.
But the article I read today, featuring JE Robison's son, Jack, has helped a little more. It's a little long, but a great read. It talks about how they met, how they started dating, the issues that they confronted with (both are diagnosed with Asperger's, and, naturally, it manifests differently for each), and how they are dealing with them. It definitely gives me hope, that I'll find someone else as weird as me, willing to put up with my quirks (to put them lightly), who I'll be able to put up with, too. Romantic, no?
Definitely read it, though. It's given me some good insights.
Penny
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